reminisce
by nimikyu
Summary: Time and distance only make the ache of missing someone precious to you stronger, and sometimes, the allure of nostalgia is too much for Ran to resist. A brief one-shot about sentimentality being a bittersweet and temporary cure for a lonely heart.


Sometimes, she visited his house even though she knew he wasn't home.

If it was during the daytime, she'd leave Conan and her father in the agency with some harmless lie as to where she was going and try her best to stay for no longer than an hour. Albeit rarely, sometimes she got the same kind of restless in the night, heart aching in a way that was near impossible to ignore. On as many nights as possible, she'd brave through it, but sometimes the allure of nostalgia was too much to resist. She'd slip on some shoes and a coat over her pajamas, and quietly creep out of the apartment for the brief walk to Shinichi's house.

Pushing past the creaky gate, she'd stand in front of his door, with the kind of hesitation that was more characteristic of someone waiting to be invited inside after knocking, rather than someone who was about to trespass on what felt like virtually abandoned property. Not that it mattered; after a whole childhood of friendship, it felt like a second home to her anyway, and also the Kudos were unlikely to bring the law down on her if they found out, so she wasn't too worried.

Her hand lightly brushed the door handle, the pang of nostalgia in her heart deepening. It prevented her from moving anything out of place most of the time, if she could help it; it could only be described as a blatant superstition, but she felt as though she might forget the memories she had here if anything was misplaced before he returned. Pulling the door open, and noting they should keep it locked more often, she walked through what felt like an exceedingly empty space without him there. As she entered the library, vast and round and towering as it were, she couldn't help feeling as though she weren't any more significant than a book on one of the many shelves. As she stood there, in moonlight filtered by the skylight, her heart filled with a deeply bittersweet feeling. Her brain was full of images of them playing together and of times she had observed Shinichi at his most natural state, thinking deeply about some case or Holmes or whatever it was he thought so intently about in the big leather chair, and her heart warmed at the good times they shared.

Standing in the middle of this place, so full of memories, she not only bloomed, but wilted. She lightly dragged her fingertips against the wooden desk in the center of the room, and across the many books as she'd walked by. If she didn't come in here to clean every other month or so, she was certain her fingertips would be covered in thick layers of dust. It had, after all, been over a year since he had returned. He was always on some huge case... one that she had been careful to note that he was always purposefully vague with her about. He never told her what it was about, where he was, or when he'd expected to be home. Sometimes, something about this case nagged at her, like the things he'd said didn't add up somewhere along the way, but she couldn't pinpoint anything aside from how uncharacteristically long it was taking him to solve this case. Her chest hurt whenever she thought about it- she had come to the point where she'd even settle for him coming home years from now, if it meant she knew the day he'd return. Right now, her best guess had a wide margin for error that included even the worst outcome, that he might never even return, and if it weren't for the occasional phone calls, it wouldn't be far-fetched for her to worry that he was dead. He implied once or twice that he didn't want her involved, and something unexpectedly desperate in his voice tripped her up and stopped her from pressing the matter. Sometimes, she could hear an underlying fear in his voice, something one might miss if they hadn't known him for as many years as she had. For now, she could only hope for the best, and hope that this case was only tedious and near-impossible, instead of dangerous and possibly deadly. For now, all she was left with was his empty house, and the memories that were only that, losing their clarity and color in his absence.

It pained her that no new memories were being made here with him, and his absence left deep in her a sorrow that always found a way to fill her entire being in her quieter moments. This was a pitiful substitute to being with him in person, and despite her knowing that, the loneliness that gripped her to her core kept her lingering here. She was always gazing upon books she'd never read in a room so deafeningly quiet she could practically hear the dust particles flutter around as she walked. Loneliness amongst a crowd or a group of friends was horrible, sure, but nothing quite compared to the quiet, invasive loneliness that comes from missing one of your closest friends while they've been away for a long time. If she could help it, she'd never admit how deep the loneliness seeped to her core to anybody, but she knew that on particularly bad days of missing him, the sorrow was helplessly etched into her voice and her actions despite her best efforts. She figured that anyone aside from Sonoko who knew the Shinichi situation just held their tongue and said nothing out of politeness.

Always, during these trips to his house, her guard fell. There was no trying to cover up the acute loneliness in her smiles, no forcing herself to move any faster than her nostalgia-addled limbs wanted to go. She stood in the center of the library for a final several minutes, letting the calm of the night settle on her skin before turning to leave.

"...Ran-neechan?" The quiet voice almost made her jump out of her skin. She pulled herself together as best as she could in what must have been record time, Conan's tiny silhouette emerging from the darkness. "What's wrong?" He asked, and her guard came down a bit once she acknowledged it was only him.

"I forgot you were staying at Professor Agasa's house tonight. I'm sorry if I startled you, I'll go home now." She gave him a sad smile and reached for his hand to hold as they walked out. "I was just- I forgot the title of a book Shinichi was telling me about that he read a long time ago, and it was really bothering me, so I came here to find out- "

"Is this where you go sometimes?" He asked, cutting her off in the middle of the lie she was telling about her reason for being here. She looked at him in disbelief.

"H-huh?" She knew Conan was a bright child, but she hadn't expected him to figure her out. "What do you mean?" She asked, not about to confess her true motive unless he spelled it out for her.

"You lie to me and Kogoro-ojisan sometimes about where you're going, and I've noticed you sneaking out at night sometimes too. This is where you go, isn't it?" He asked, and for the brief seconds he made eye contact with her she saw an apologetic sorrow in his eyes that made no sense to her. She was shocked into silence for a couple seconds, but her expression softened into something almost as good as a verbal admission of guilt. He turned away and stared at the ground with an intensity that led her to believe there was something there, but there was nothing. "Do you miss Shinichi-niichan that much?"

She noted that while the first question he asked, he was confident of the answer, but in the second question, something in his voice wavered, like he wished he didn't know the answer. She couldn't fathom why it meant so much to Conan himself, but decided to answer honestly. It wasn't like she could hide much from him at this point, anyway. "...I do. Sometimes, I miss him so much, it's like I'm missing one of my arms or legs. Coming here... sometimes it dulls the ache a little, even though he's not here. Silly, huh?" She wiped away some tears that slipped out of her eyes as she was speaking, and before she could suggest that they keep moving, Conan spoke up.

"Shinichi-niichan will be back soon! As soon as he possibly can!" He was looking up at her again, with a determination that looked as though this tiny boy was going to track Shinichi down and bring him home even if it meant dragging him by the collar of his shirt. He looked like he was going to say something else for a moment, then backtracked a bit, as if realizing his tone was almost too much for an elementary schooler even though she was well used to it by now, and chirped, "At least, that's what he tells me! Ahaha..." She couldn't tell if it was the genuine tone of his voice or the fact he was trying to cheer her up, but his words made her smile.

"He tells me that too. I may miss him a lot, but... I believe in him to come home to me in one piece. Thank you for trying to cheer me up, Conan-kun." He looked up at her with a mixed amount of relief from her response and an emotion she couldn't quite place, something sorrowful that she saw in him sometimes but knew from previous attempts to ask about it that it was something secretive that he was determined on taking to the grave. "Let's get back to our respective beds, okay? I'll see you at home tomorrow." She offered, letting go of his hand at the gates to Shinichi's house. He nodded.

The two bid each other goodnight before going their separate ways. As he turned and headed back to the professor's, she lingered before beginning her journey home for one final moment, looking at Shinichi's house as it quietly stood and glowed in the gentle moonlight.

 _Goodnight to you too, Shinichi. Come home soon._


End file.
